Dance, Gladys, Dance

by Cassie Stocks

  “Gladys?” I said in a loud whisper. Empty theatres are so churchy I didn’t feel I could yell. “Gladys? Where the hell did you go?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Was it So Wrong?

  There was a rustle of the curtains at the back and an elegant young woman walked out on the stage. Her dark brown hair was swept up into a loose bun at the back of her neck and large waves curled around the front of her face. She wore a long pale blue dress covered in shimmering golden beads.

  I scrambled to think of a fib to explain why I was in the theatre. I could say I was Whitman’s assistant and had come ahead to prepare for his arrival. The woman stopped at centre stage and put her arms out in front of her. I cleared my throat and was about to speak, wanting to catch her before she started to rehearse, when she began bobbing her head up and down. “I’m Gladys. I got no body. It’s cruddy. I’m Gladys.”

  Gladys? Oh God. She stopped singing, began to move her hips back and forth, and swayed her shoulders. Gladys was dancing. She was young again and she was dancing. I stood in the dark aisle and tears rolled down my cheeks.

  I stood there mesmerized until she finished her dance and then I walked up to the front of the stage. Gladys turned and smiled at me. “That felt marvelous,” she said.

  “You look amazing,” I said.

  “I was nice to look at back then.” She looked down at herself. “It didn’t last forever. Come sit.” She walked over to the edge of the stage and sat, with her legs dangling over. I hesitated, feeling strangely shy. The old Gladys had been relatively easy to talk to, but this metamorphosed dazzling creature intimidated me.

  “Do you want me to change back?” she asked as if reading my thoughts.

  “No. I’d like you to stay this way forever. I wish you could have stayed that way.” I went and sat down beside her.

  “My labour pains started the next morning,” she said, staring out into the empty seats. “The morning after Jack found me dancing in the chicken crap. It was a hard birth and I only saw the baby for a minute before I passed out. It was a boy. A beautiful little boy. When I woke up, there was a man I’d never seen before sitting beside my bed. ‘Good afternoon, Gladys,’ he said. ‘I’m Dr. Wallberg.’ ‘Where’s my baby?’ I said. ‘Is he all right?’ I tried to sit up. ‘He’s fine,’ the doctor said. ‘Don’t you worry.’ And then he said, ‘I understand you’ve been having some troubles lately.’”

  “No,” Gladys shook her head as she sat there.

  Stop, I wanted to say, stop telling me, it hurts you, it hurts me, I don’t want to hear it, but I knew I had to hear, I had to listen.

  “‘No,’” she repeated. “I said, ‘I haven’t had any troubles.’ I was so scared. I knew something was wrong. ‘Bring me my baby,’ I said to him. ‘Where is he?’ He ignored me. ‘We’re worried about you, Gladys,’ he said and patted my hand. ‘We think it best that you have a little rest before you start taking care of your child.’ ‘I don’t need a rest,’ I said. I was so frightened I couldn’t think straight. The doctor said, ‘Sometimes a respite with professional care can work wonders. One of our nurses will be in to help you dress and then we’ll go.’ For a minute, I couldn’t say anything. I was just frozen, then I said, ‘I’m not going anywhere without my baby.’ He was already leaving and a nurse in her uniform with a heavy woolen cape over top was coming in. I started to yell. ‘Help me, Jack. They’re taking me away. Please help.’ Before the door shut behind the doctor, I saw Jack standing in the hall. Our eyes locked briefly and again I saw my worth reflected there. Zero. None.”

  Tears traced down my face again.

  “I fought,” Gladys said without looking at me. “Don’t you think I went easy, but I was weak from having the baby and they bundled me up and took me out into a carriage that waited outside. They took me to the Brandon Asylum for the Insane. I never went to Toronto, I never danced, and I never saw my baby again.” She began to cry softly and rock back and forth.

  I wanted to put my arms around her, but I was afraid they would go right through her and I didn’t think that would comfort either of us. I waited and she began to calm down and her sobs slowed until she was just sitting and rocking.

  “How long were you in the institution?”

  “Seven years. I was hysterical at first, I suppose. The thought that they were going to keep me there. . . and my baby. . . I just couldn’t. . . I cried and screamed and hit people. I. . . they threw me in cold tubs, strapped me down. There was a long metal cage they’d put over the bed and lock me up underneath it. Once, when they let me out, I broke all my fingers trying to dig through the walls.”

  She stared down at her hands, bending and straightening her fingers, then looked back up at me. I couldn’t meet her eyes.

  She continued quietly, “Once I spent all that anger there was nothing left. I stared at walls and lay on the floor. They carried me from place to place. I didn’t speak. I went away for a long time.”

  “Oh, Gladys. What a waste — it’s a crime.”

  “I started to come back,” she said. “My life before. . . my memory of it began to disintegrate. Just shreds and tatters. Some things I could still remember, but those things hurt so much I didn’t dare let myself think of them. There was a nurse who helped me, talked to me like I was a real person, made sure I got up and around. There was farm work for the men, but ladies weren’t supposed to work. The nurse, Sarah, she let me help in the kitchen. She thought it was therapeutic. Jack would have loved that — he was always after me to cook and bake more, and there I was baking seven days a week.”

  “Gladys doesn’t dance anymore, she needs the room to bake.”

  She smiled. “Right.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “What can I do? Please tell me, Gladys. Tell me how I can help.”

  “You’re helping right now,” she said turning and looking at me. “No one knows. I never got to tell my story to anyone. There were so many of us in there. So many that wanted the wrong things or couldn’t manage to be content. No one heard us. Who was there to listen? Was it so wrong to want to dance?”

  “No,” I whispered, “it wasn’t wrong.”

  “I never gave up hope,” said Gladys. “I never stopped believing I could dance. If they hadn’t locked me away, I would have. Even if I’d had to stay with Jack, I’d have danced for those damn chickens every day again, just like I did when I was a girl. Do you hear me, Frieda?”

  “I hear you, but what can I do? What is it you want me to do for you?”

  “It’s not time for some things yet,” she said. “You can’t have both, you know, you can’t try to have the entire world love you, try to be perfect for everyone and still create.”

  I nodded. “That’s when you end up stealing forks.”

  “Do you get the point of my story?”

  “Yes, of course, but no, not exactly. Men are assholes?”

  Gladys shook her head.

  “Don’t count your socks until they come out of the dryer? I never was very good at this,” I said. “All those Aesop’s fables in elementary school, what the hell, I never could figure out the moral until the teacher explained it to me.”

  Gladys smiled. “For a modern woman,” she said, “you’re not very bright, are you?”

  “What?”

  Gladys stood. “Well, we’d better get going. We don’t want to miss our bus.”

  “I think I already missed it,” I muttered and went and turned off the lights. By the time I got to the exit, Gladys was waiting there. She’d turned back into her old self, but I was never able to look at her again without seeing a glimmer of that beautiful young woman in the beaded gown. We took the nearly empty bus home in silence.

  I heard laughter in the kitchen the next morning. A familiar honking laughter. Lady March. I dressed quickly and went down.

  “Frieda darling,” said Lady March, getting up from the table. “Come here and give me a hug. I missed you. Why didn’t you write or call me, you silly goose?”
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br />   I shrugged from the middle of her embrace and smiled. Lady March wore a long red cotton dress embroidered with butterflies and flowers. Her platinum hair was in wild, soft curls partially contained by a green and purple scarf wrapped around the middle of her head and tied at the back of her neck with the tails hanging down.

  “I see you’ve met Mr. H.,” I said.

  “I have indeed. He made me the most enchanting breakfast and I’ve been talking his ear off about the incredible things I saw in Chicago. Haven’t I?” She reached over and tugged on Mr. H.’s ear.

  He blushed and smiled. “My ears are at your service, m’lady.”

  “Don’t you m’lady me. I’m just Alvena.” She sat back down. “Now, Frieda, you get yourself a cup of java, sit down, and tell me everything about your life.”

  “There isn’t much to tell,” I said as I got a cup from the cupboard. “I haven’t been doing much.”

  “Well,” said Lady March, “you know what the I Ching says about waiting. The hsu brings nourishment. Perseverance carries good fortune. It furthers one to cross the great water.”

  I sat down at the table. “I think I’m up the great water without a paddle.”

  “Oh, hush,” she said. “Trust that you’ll be given all you need. It’s an abundant universe.”

  I nodded. There was no use trying to dissuade Lady March. Her faith in a loving, giving universe was absolute.

  “Where’s Norman and Whitman?” I asked Mr. H.

  “Norman had more business to attend to and Whitman is out and about somewhere,” he said.

  Lady March cocked her head to one side. “Is there someone else in the house?”

  “No,” said Mr. H., “just us.”

  She frowned. “I sense another here.”

  I looked around. Gladys stood at the bottom of the back stairs. Lady March stared right at her.

  “Has your wife ever come back to see you?” Lady March asked Mr. H.

  “No,” he said, glancing about guiltily as though Shirley might be witnessing his enchantment with Lady March.

  “I sense spirits here,” said Lady March. She tilted her head up to the ceiling. “Could you give us a sign?”

  Mr. H. paled. My mouth hung open. Was someone other than me finally going to see Gladys? She was no longer visible. There was a sudden bump by the back door. Mr. H. jumped in his seat.

  “Hello,” said Lady March. “What can we do for you?”

  There was nothing for a minute and then Lady March’s chair moved about three inches over so that she and Mr. H. sat thigh to thigh. Mr. H. gasped. “Cheese and Rice,” he said, “what was that?”

  “Oh,” said Lady March, smiling at Mr. H., “isn’t that interesting?”

  Mr. H. nodded, his face a bright crimson.

  “Can you speak?” Lady March asked the air. Nothing. We waited in silence for a moment and then she said, “I don’t feel anything anymore. Whoever it was has gone.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Mr. H. breathlessly. “Do you think it was Shirley?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Lady March. “The spirits only reveal what they wish. Are you all right?” She patted Mr. H.’s arm.

  “Oh, yes, fine.” He half stood from his chair, sat down, then stood up. “I — uh — I’d better get going to the Art Centre. Do you want to come along, Frieda?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I’ll come if you’ll have me,” said Lady March. “Norman has told me so much about the Centre and your wonderful work there, I’d love for you to show me around.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. H. “You’d better see it now, before it ceases to exist.”

  “Now, now,” said Lady March, “we need to be positive and creative. I’ll see what the building tells me.”

  Mr. H. shot me a sideways glance. I smiled and shrugged.

  The two of them left. I went into the bathroom with an encyclopedia — Petard to Quadra. A polite cough sounded in the hallway.

  “That you, Gladys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you hang on for a minute?”

  Silence.

  “Gladys?”

  “I miss having to go to the bathroom,” she said.

  “Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  “I’ll wait in the living room,” she said.

  When I got out, Gladys was sitting in Mr. H.’s recliner chair looking pleased with herself.

  “What were you doing?” I asked. “Scaring poor Mr. H. to death.”

  “How could I resist?” she said smiling. “They’d make an excellent couple. What are you doing today?”

  “Looking for a job, I suppose.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” She vanished.

  “That’s it? Gladys?”

  Nothing.

  I sat at the kitchen table going through the classifieds. There’d been so much going on I’d conveniently neglected to look for a job. And now that I looked at the ads, I wished I could forget again. I wonder if I could drive a forklift. I closed the paper.

  There was a large manila envelope on the table underneath the sugar bowl. I moved the bowl, picked up the envelope, and turned it over. No name. It could be for me. Not likely, but it could be. It wasn’t sealed; I opened it and dumped out the pages. Halfway down the first page were the words The Devil’s Cry. I turned to the second page and read the first scene of a screenplay, a very disturbing scene involving a possessed young woman, a knife, and way too much blood for me, even in black and white. I shuddered. Was this Marilyn’s script? If Whitman made big money from this stuff, maybe I could too. Let’s see, there could be a man with a chainsaw, no, a clown, no, been done, okay, a psychopathic, uh, forklift driver takes to the streets, impaling people on the pokey things on the front of the forklift. Of course, it would only take the police about five minutes to catch him, unless it was, uh, a super-turbo-charged forklift, a Ferrari forklift, okay, never mind.

  There was a knock and the back door opened all at once. Miss Kesstle stood there looking around the kitchen. I slid the pages back into the envelope.

  “Who’s here now?” she asked.

  “Just me,” I said, looking around to see if Gladys was there and Miss Kesstle had now picked up her spiritual vibes.

  “I saw a fancy woman leave with Mr. Hausselman, all doodled up, looked like she was going to a costume party.”

  “That was Lady March, Norman’s mom. She’s staying here for a bit. You want a cup of coffee?”

  “Where did they go?” She walked in and sat down at the table.

  “To the Art Centre. Coffee?”

  “No coffee. It gives me gas. I can’t stop thinking about that young woman we met at the art show.”

  “Girl? How about some toast?” I asked.

  “Did you know there hasn’t been a decent toaster made since they started space travel? All the inventors fooling around with outer space things instead of making decent appliances. I thought I could do something for her. Help her somehow. She’s too young to be out on the streets. And did you see what she did with those doilies? She’s obviously very bright. Could you find her and make sure she’s all right?”

  “I’m feeling like my hands are kinda full already with Norman and Ginny and now Lady March is here too.”

  “How long is she staying?”

  “Until Norman gets his this-and-that business done, I suppose.”

  “Humph,” said Miss Kesstle. “There’s been more people here in the last few weeks than Mr. Hausselman had in a year before.”

  “He seems to be enjoying the company,” I said.

  She hmphed again. “Will you try and find her, Frieda? It would set my mind at ease. Maybe you could talk to her a little. Do you think you and Mr. Hausselman will still be over for Sunday supper?”

  “I’m not sure, with everyone here and —”

  “Well, I suppose they could all come. No reason for Mr. Hausselman to give up his Sunday supper because of all these
people coming and going.”

  “I’ll let everyone know,” I said.

  “You’ll tell me if you find her?”

  I nodded. Miss Kesstle went out the back door. I hated the thought of her sitting there alone in that empty house without even her crocheting to keep her company. God only knew what information she’d pick up from radio talk shows.

  I called Ginny but there was no answer. She was probably already out tearing up interview rooms with snappy answers and perfectly planned career goals. Maybe I should leave her a message about the forklift job.

  I decided to go out and wander, look for help wanted signs, and keep an eye open for Girl at the same time. I had an idea, not at all perfectly planned, but it might be a way to help her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A Regular Tornado

  Girl was working on a new box in the back alley near Ginny’s place. This box was partially covered in flattened-out boxes from feminine hygiene products, patches of moss, and photos Girl had taken of ordinary women holding up photos of female movie stars.

  “Hey Girl,” I said as I wandered closer. “Neat project. What’s it about?”

  “Well, no one ever thinks of movie stars being on the rag. They’re always so clean and pretty. So I was kinda thinking about that so. . .” She gestured at the box.

  “The juxtaposition between the women we see as above us, mixed with a symbol of their basic humanity. That’s great.” Who said I didn’t learn anything in art school?

  Girl looked at me blankly. “Uh, maybe. Thanks. I sold the other box for fifty bucks. Pretty good, hey?”

  She wore a pink T-shirt and a miniskirt made of Miss Kesstle’s pineapple doilies, with black bicycle shorts underneath.

  “Nice skirt too. Miss Kesstle says hi.”

  “Cool.” She carried on with her cutting and pasting.

  “So, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” I said.